VH I Tone Double Mic'ed

[Sean_McFly]

Okay I've never gotten this close to the VH I tone, and I didn't think the strat's mahogany tonewood could even pull this smack-y trebly tone off, but damn, this sounds CRAZY . Dimed Rockstah (except for Bass at 4 and treble at , double mic'ed cab (one simulating the pre-rola placement, and one simulating the JBL placement), no EQ or boost in front. Take a listen. I think this is nuts!!! If you guys have the luxury, double mic. Seriously, it pays off

Various VH I Licks:
https://soundcloud.com/seans-evh-explor ... th-2-sm57s

I'm The One Intro:
https://soundcloud.com/seans-evh-explor ... e-improved

[dirtycooter]

How you placing the mics and are both 57's? A 57 and a ??? Same speaker or mic two different speaks?
I have fooled around with 2 57's but found it hard to make it sound just right. So curious to your method.
Center straight in and one out on the edge? Distances?
Sounds pretty good as always. Has a nice melting down kinda vibe. You definitly brought your sound even closer and it was pretty good to begin with.
Whats the pickup?

[Mr.Farva]

Im the one sounds really great! Pictures of mic placement would be great.

[Sean_McFly]

How you placing the mics and are both 57's? A 57 and a ??? Same speaker or mic two different speaks?
I have fooled around with 2 57's but found it hard to make it sound just right. So curious to your method.
Center straight in and one out on the edge? Distances?
Sounds pretty good as always. Has a nice melting down kinda vibe. You definitly brought your sound even closer and it was pretty good to begin with.
Whats the pickup?

I've got two 57's on it! Both off axis on the right side of the speakers. One is just off center and 1 inch away, and the other is angled towards the top edge of the speaker, about 2 1/2 inches away from the grille. I'll send some pics in a bit! FYI the strat has a SD Custom '78 in the bridge and a vintage 6 hole trem.

[echoplexi1974]

Sounds awesome Sean!!! Those SD EVH 78 pickups are the bees knees!!!

Keep up the good work!!!

[dirtycooter]

I totally understand the fist position and mic almost centered. Thats one I like. Its a go to position for sure. I go straight in but the edge of the dust cap divides the center of mic face-so yeah like an inch from center.
But if I inderstand the 2nd one is pointing up from the inside area to the outter edge of the cone? Angled away from the center and outward? I have done this and its that extra hair and middy tone. From what I remember. I can see that workin good.

Does your mother know you play with such a dirty amp?

[Sean_McFly]

Here are the mic placements I had before I dismantled them and took the Rockstah and my 1981 2x12 with me to Nashville. The' 72 4x12 still stands at my New York studio and I miss it dearly lol

[dirtycooter]

Tried this morning. Not so much the exact place on the cone but the distance. Close and then a more distant one blended in.. Definitly lends complexity to it all. Gonna be a while fiddlin but yeah its pickin up more OD textures fillin it out more. Actually sounds a bit more natural like standing in front and collecting it all with your ears from a distance with some super natural enhancement.

[eljodon]

That's really close! Just a bit gainy. I hear a slight twang on the A string on the original.
I'm glad to hear that someone finally got the swing of I'm the one rhythm correct! I've heard countless of people do it and they never get it right! Have you tried using one 57 straight and the other on off Axis on the same speaker?

[Sean_McFly]

That's really close! Just a bit gainy. I hear a slight twang on the A string on the original.
I'm glad to hear that someone finally got the swing of I'm the one rhythm correct! I've heard countless of people do it and they never get it right! Have you tried using one 57 straight and the other on off Axis on the same speaker?

Hey thanks! From what I've deduced, the twang simply comes from Ed's tonewood. The mahogany is more even, and even with a maple top, it's gonna be warmer and less twangy than an ash guitar. Plus the SD '78 with mahogany sound more "sustain-y" than an ash strat with an HB. When I finally splurge for an ash body strat with a DSD or a franky pickup, that's when stuff will get closer lol. And I've never gotten great results from double mic'ing the same speaker with 2 '57s, but I think that's because my cab's weird lolol but I'm going to try literally every placement possible just for fun!

[eljodon]

Yeah your right mahogany is very different. I just built another Warmoth guitar with mahogany over flame maple and it's darker than my Alder guitars, but for some reason I get more harmonics with mahogany over maple. I pretty clueless about woods and just started experimenting.
I don't know if you know this but the problem with double miking is phase issues, what I do I record a staccato played chord and zoom in the waveform, do a tab to transient and see if the beginning of the waveform is even with both mics if not, I move the mic that's behind the most and match it to the other one. Once their the same you should be in phase. But first make sure you like the tone with one mic,then add the other putting it 45 degrees from the straight mic.Some people record both mics into one track,. I like to record them in separate tracks so I can have the option later to blend them.

[dirtycooter]

Ahhh.... exactly as I did.
Record both mics on seperate tracks and then have the ability to fiddle with the mix of both in relation to each other.
Crazy how it turns out. I brought my 2nd mic back about a foot roughly and parallel to the outer cones angle-for trying to catch the more subdued middy part of the paper of the cone.
First mic is basically straight in on center pretty much up tight close.
When adding in the second mic its so much more "middy" and if not careful can get "cardboardy sounding".
Still experimenting but I never got that much mids by adding just a 2nd mic before. Mid range appearant boost is actually quite considerable. More than I ever thought possible.
On playback its fun to play with that mix with both mics panned over top of each other. Its like movin the slider on the mid frequency of an e.q. almost. Pretty fat then goin extreme quick.
Anyone out there fiddlin should try this. Its eye opening where mids can come from vs just tryin to dial in your amp. And shows possibilities of what can come from where in the whole process.
Maybe more to these mic positions than people realize. I tried alot of the up close of both and blending. Stumped me. But distance? That seems to yield some stuff.

[JiMB]

I like recording the mics on separate tracks, also, better for blending how you want. Phase alignment is important. I use a plugin from Radix, the Auto Align. Simple to use, brings the body and clarity back into the recording. Waves makes a nice one, too.

[johnnybgoood]

I'm hoping this is not a radical departure from the topic. Apologies if it is.

Here's my Conspiracy Theory on the recording technique of VH1.
Most of us seem to agree that the amount of distortion recorded during VH1 is a tone unique in the history of the world of music. LUV IT!

Donn Landee used two mics. Guitar mics are numbers 11 & 12 in the tracking sheet below.
George Saer mentioned in an interview with Pensado that "Ed likes one kinda close and then one further back in the room." http://pensadia.com/wp/blog/topics/media/episodes/ (Episode 25- around 31 minute mark).

Ed's amp was definitely variac'd. There is no sound pressure noticable on his tone. Regardless of how great the SM57 is for recording guitar, the mic can still produce a forced signal if the placement is too close to the grill cloth. A variac'd amp solves this problem.

Here is where my craziness is revealed. I believe Landee routed the room microphone signal and ran a Big Muff through the FX loop of the console in Studio 2 at Sunset Sound. The Big Muff was used to get that extra fuzz using the room mic signal. If not a Big Muff, then an overdrive pedal of some sort. Also, this makes Ed's statement true that he didn't use any overdrive pedals in front of the amp.

I am guessing it was the "Big Muff" because Montrose used it on their first album. http://www.redrocker.com/discography/montrose. "Van Halen had used this album as a blueprint for their own debut and there are some similarities in the sound of the Montrose album to early Van Halen. Ronnie Montrose mainly used a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Bandmaster and a Big Muff to record the Montrose album. Eddie Van Halen himself considered Ronnie Montrose to be an influence." - Sammy Hagar

Why? I'm thinking Ed is no different than the rest of us. He was tone chasing the sound derived from the recoding of Van Halen 1 and always looking for more usable distortion in his live tone. That's why he began playing master volume amps later on (ex. 5150, Soldano).

[eljodon]

Great stuff johnnybgood. What I've been doing lately is using 4 different speakers in one cabinet and using a 57 on each one placed in the same exact location. Then I use a Roger 121 on a normal position and a Heil PR 20 ut off axis on one of the speakers. This way I have an option on what speaker to use for recording. I've used all 4 speakers with just the 57's or a combination of 2 57's, the Roger 121 and the Heil PR 20 ut at the same time and it sounds great! So when I mix down I can pick 4 different tones of different speakers in one take. I'm using Scumbacks M75,BH75,H75 and a Celestion Creamback in the same cabinet.This set up saves me time instead chaging speaker cabs and having to re place the mic's again. I'm planning to do the same with my other cabinets so I can have more options. All the mics go through my patch bay so I can select which mic to plug into my mic preamps. Another cool thing about this set up is that I can just get different models of one vintage Celestion speaker and save $$ instead of having to buy 4.